Synthetic biopolymers such as oligonucleotides play a pivotal role in many fields such as molecular biology, forensic science, and medical diagnostics. Oligonucleotides, in particular, have become indispensable tools in modern biotechnology. Oligonucleotides are being used in a wide variety of techniques, ranging from diagnostic probing methods, PCR, antisense inhibition of gene expression to nucleic acid assembly. This widespread use of oligonucleotides has led to an increasing demand for rapid, inexpensive and efficient methods for synthesizing oligonucleotides.
Nucleic acid arrays such as DNA and RNA arrays are useful in a variety of different fields such as diagnostics (for example single polymorphism detection), genomics (for example genomic DNA purification, differential gene expression analysis) and synthetic biology (for example, gene synthesis).